Dr. Stephan Hartmann

Modeling in Science and Philosophy

There are at least two ways in which philosophers can and have benefitted from the work of scientists. Firstly, scientific results have long been employed to support or reject philosophical accounts. Secondly, a growing number of philosophers now import methods from the sciences and apply them to philosophical problems. In this talk I will illustrate how this more recent development works, taking examples, based on my own work, from epistemology (the coherence theory of justification), philosophy of science (confirmation and theory choice) and political philosophy (voting theory). My talk will end with some metatheoretical reflections regarding the following questions: What are the differences between modeling in science and modeling in philosophy? What is the scope of the modeling method in philosophy? I shall also explain how my views relate to those of Patrick Suppes.